Layered citation for passport applications

Hello mbcross.  Let’s see if we can demystify the layered citation concept ...

When we have imaged documents online,  we have two or three things to cite:

1. RECORD LAYER: Here, we identify the original document, describing it with as much detail as is visible from the image itself.
2. ACCESS LAYER: Here, we identify the website/database that delivers the document.
3. “CITING …” LAYER (aka LOCATION LAYER): Here we report whatever information the website database tells us about the location of the original, that we could not discern from the image itself.

We may also reverse layers 1 and 2, depending upon our needs. We may not need Layer 3 if we can discern for ourselves all the details needed to fully identify the record.

The one cardinal rule is that details that belong in one layer should never be placed in one of the other layers. If we have an eggplant and a Granny Smith apple, side-by-side, and we’re asked to describe each of them, we don’t take the “green” part of the apple description and use it to describe the eggplant, right?

This is where you’re getting confused.

• You began your citation with the “Database,” Website (URL : date) in Layer 1. (So far, so good.)
• Then you ended Layer 1.
• To start Layer 2 (your Record Layer), you described in your own words the document of your interest—name and date, but not place—followed by the website’s path and waypoints that led you to the document.  (Here, you’re assigning the green color of the apple to the purple eggplant.)
• Your Layer 3 then cites what the website tells us about the source of that image. (But there’s a significant problem here that we’ll get to later.)

Let's begin again with an image of the document to which your citation points and discuss what we see on that page:

From this image alone,  we can extract the following that are essential to a citation--i.e., the who, what, when, where details:

• No. 15633
• Pittsburg, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
• Application for passport by John Woodruff Culmer
• Application date: 8 March 1880
• Issue date: 10 March 1880.

From this image alone, we have no idea where, in the physical world, this document is found or what it came from. As we would do with any book or roll of microfilm, we go back to the start of the book or the film to see what additional information may be there.  At image 4, we see this:

This is a title page for a National Archives microfilm publication. From this image, we can construct a full citation to exactly what we are using—just as if we were reading the title page to a book or using the microfilm itself:

Registers and Indexes for Passport Applications, NA microfilm publication M1371, 13 rolls (No place, though we know that NA is in DC: National Archives, no date), roll 233, target 1 (volume 516, March 1–31, 1880), ……….

At the point where the ellipses appear, we need to identify a specific item of interest. That would be the document No. 15633 that is the passport for Name, Date, Place. So, let’s take the identifying data we’ve extracted from that document and plug it into the Specific Item Block of the citation:

LAYER 1: RECORD LAYER

Registers and Indexes for Passport Applications, NA microfilm publication M1371, 13 rolls (Washington, DC: National Archives, no date), roll 233, target 1 (volume 516, March 1–31, 1880), John Woodruff Culmer passport application no. 15633 (applied 8 March 1880, issued 10 March 1880), Pittsburg, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania;

Now, we need to cite the website that delivered this record to us.  Again, we cite it using the same basic pattern we would use for a print publication. Specifically, citing a named database at a website is equivalent to citing a chapter in a book that has different chapter authors whose material has to be individually identified. The data we need for this citation comes from the “frame” that FamilySearch puts around the image.   Let’s zero-in on the top of that frame

In the browser box at the top, we see the exact URL for the image. Then we see a couple of lines from Family Search with menu options. Below that, FamilySearch states

• the name of the database (the first item in blue)
• then its path by which we get to the image
• then the image number

Let’s assemble all that in the standard format for citing a book or website that has differently authored chapters or databases:

                LAYER 2: ACCESS LAYER

“United States Passport Applications, 1795–1925,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-99DC-NBQ2) > (M1372) Passport Applications, 1795–1905 > Roll 233, vol 516-518, 1880 Mar-Apr > image 159 of 1524.

Then we put the two layers together:

        1. Registers and Indexes for Passport Applications, NA microfilm publication M1371, 13 rolls (Washington, DC: National Archives, no date), roll 233, target 1 (volume 516, March 1–31, 1880), John Woodruff Culmer passport application no. 15633 (applied 8 March 1880, issued 10 March 1880), Pittsburg, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; “United States Passport Applications, 1795–1925,” FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-99DC-NBQ2) > (M1372) Passport Applications, 1795–1905 > Roll 23, vol 516-518, 1880 Mar-Apr > image 159 of 1524.

In this case, we do not need a third “citing …” layer because we can gather, from the images themselves, all the details needed for the full citation to the original document/microfilm.  We don’t need to depend upon FamilySearch's statement that it took the information from whatever.

At the bottom of the FS image of the document, we also see the following:

What FamilySearch has done here is to switch the emphasis from the individual document to its own database.  Rather than citing the document in Layer 1 and citing its own database in Layer 2, FamilySearch uses this approach:

• Layer 1: Cite the database and website. Then, in the specific item field, where the image is cited, it stuffs in all the details for the specific document of interest.
• Layer 2: Cite where it got the image. Here, FS put all those NARA publication details that we can see for ourselves by examining the set of microfilm images.

Switching the order of Layers 1 and 2, for imaged records, is perfectly fine. That’s the advantage of working with layers for imaged records: we can switch the layers as needed.  In this case, if we have multiple citations to this set of records, and we are entering citations into data-management software, then it would be easier to create just one Master Source:

“Database,” Website (URL for the collection itself) …

Then, for each of the passports we use from this database, we can stuff the details into that Specific Item Block after the parentheses. 

QuickLesson 19: Layered Citations Work Like Layered Clothing (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/quicklesson-19-layered-citations-work-layered-clothing) explains all this from different angles.

Anytime we add evidence from a source document we should not correct the spelling of what is actually written. What I do is (with discretion) is add the correct spelling or left out characters in parentheses. With Genealogy software we sometimes have to manipulate the template or use a basic template to get the citation correct (not sure how well this works with Legacy but my Family Tree Maker templates give a lot of leeway for First (Full) Reference Notes). Some templates have a way of putting a comma where we don't want them. Bottom line is you have to play around with your Legacy Templates till you have the information structured as explained above.

Hello, mbcross. Let me try to explain things differently because there are still the same core issues. And they are going to affect every citation to every database from this website that you try to create following the pattern you’ve created. So, two questions, as food for thought:

1. When we follow your citation, and we go to familysearch.org, how do we get from there to the database called “United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925"?

2. When users of your citation who are not familiar with the architecture of familysearch figure out that they need to add a couple of steps not included in your citation (i.e., familysearch.org  plus the path: Search > Records) and they find the right database, how do they get from there to the next thing in your citation: Registers and Indexes for Passport Applications, NARA microfilm publication M1371?  The landing page for that database offers no such option.

Many users will also be confused by the fact that you end your Layer 1 immediately after the parenthetical publication data for the database:

"United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925," database and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 17 Jul 2023);

When we cite a database, we also have to cite what we’re looking for in that database—in that same layer. As we discussed earlier, a database at a website is cited by the same pattern used for a book that has chapters by different authors:

Name of Creator/Author If Given, “Title of Chapter or Database,” descriptor, Title of Book or Website (Publication Place = URL : Date), specific item or page within this database or chapter.

The Specific Item is missing from your Layer 1.  What you’ve done is to close out Layer 1, unfinished, then start Layer 2 in which you present a full citation to a different publication by a different publisher:

Registers and Indexes for Passport Applications, NARA microfilm publication M1371, 13 rolls (Washington, DC: National Archives, n.d.), roll 233, target 1 (volume 516, March 1–31, 1880), John Woodruff Culmer passport application no. 15633 (applied 8 March 1880, issued 10 March 1880), Pittsburg, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania;

There are three problems here:

1. Traditionally, when citing multiple publications in the same footnote, students have been taught to cite one source, put a semicolon, then cite the next source. Therefore, many users of your citation, when they see that semicolon at the end of the incomplete citation to the database, followed by a full citation to a different source, will think you are citing two different sources—as opposed to the actual situation: one source, a database, presenting images from elsewhere.

2. How does the user of your citation get from the database’s landing page to this specific publication by NARA?  In your citation, the road has dead-ended. There’s a chasm there with no bridge across it.  The database does provide a bridge eventually: a path and a couple of waypoints that take us from the landing page to the image that we want. But you’ve moved that bridge to Layer 3. Your reader has to swim through several lines of citation to a different publication before they get to your Layer 3.

3. Your Layer 3 (the “Citing …” Layer), says that the database is citing itself—ts own internal architecture:  

citing (M1372) Passport Applications, 1795–1905 > Roll 23, vol 516-518, 1880 Mar-Apr > image 159 of 1524.

As we discussed yesterday, this is not what the database is citing. The database does not cite its own structure. The database cites the National Archives publication from which it took the images. That citation appears beneath each image, as shown below:

All things considered, a citation that emphasizes the database would be this (alterations in red):

LAYER 1

"United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925," database and images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2185145 : accessed 17 Jul 2023) >   (M1372) Passport Applications, 1795–1905 > Roll 233, vol 516-518, 1880 Mar-Apr > image 159 of 1524: John Woodruff Culmer passport application no. 15633 (applied 8 March 1880, issued 10 March 1880), Pittsburg[h], Allegheny County, Pennsylvania;

Note that

• the URL is the exact URL for the database. That resolves the question of how to get from familysearch.org to the actual database.
• the Specific Item Block cites the path and waypoints that take users from the URL to the exact image. Then it identifies what one will find on that image.

Now we are ready to close out Layer 1. The next layer will be your "Citing ..." Layer.

LAYER 2

citing “NARA microfilm publications M1490 and M1372 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).”

Note that

• the “Citing …” layer cites exactly what FamilySearch cites in its suggested citation. That’s where FamilySearch says the information came from. We can’t say that FamilySearch is citing something else and we don’t say that FamilySearch is citing its own database structure.
• Quotation marks are used because we recognize that there's a problem with the citation but we're still reporting exactly what it says.